"NewsWrap"
for the week ending May 26, 2007
(As broadcast on "This Way Out" program #1,000, distributed 5-28-07)
[Written by Greg Gordon, with thanks to Graham Underhill, and Rex Wockner
with Bill Kelley]
Reported this week by Tanya Kane-Parry and Don Lupo
ILGA ­ the International Lesbian and Gay Association ­ annannounced this week
that the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations had
denied NGO status to the Swedish LGBT federation RFSL, and deferred consideration
of two other LGBT national federations: FELGT from Spain and ABGLT from Brazil.
Only a handful of LGBT groups have successfully gained such status at the
UN. In an effort to expand the number of queer voices there, ILGA has conducted
a campaign since 2005 to have more LGBT groups apply for NGO status.
Representatives of several countries dominated by conservative religious beliefs on
the UN selection committee, however, have blocked most of them.
But Nepalâ€™s Blue Diamond Society announced this week that the Federation
for Sexual and Gender Minorities, Nepal has been registered at the District
Administration Office in Katmandu.
Nine organizations working on HIV/AIDS, human rights, and constitutional and
legal reforms for sexual minorities are the founding member organizations of
the now government-recognized Federation. Blue Diamond leader Sunil Pant
called the registration "another step forward to promote human rights" in the
Himalayan nation.
Lithuania's first LGBT Pride celebrations got off to a bumpy start in
mid-May when bus drivers in the city of Kaunas refused to drive buses displaying
ads from the Lithuanian Gay League. Three of the large ads, running the length
of the buses and also appearing on the back, said: "A lesbian can work at
school," "A gay man can serve in the police force," and "Homosexual employees have
a right to be open and safe."
A spokesperson for the bus company said the drivers feared they would be
mocked by friends and that the buses would be vandalized. After the company
demanded guarantees that it would be reimbursed for smashed bus windows and the
like, the agency that placed the ads had them removed.
The ads were also set to run this week on buses in the capital city of
Vilnius. They cost more than the equivalent of 6,500 U.S. dollars to produce and
place, and were funded by the European Union and the Lithuanian government.
Vilnius Mayor Juozas Imbrasas banned the ads' appearance there as well. "We
tolerate people of any kind of sexual orientation," said Imbrasas, "nevertheless,
with priority for the traditional family and seeking to promote family values,
we disapprove the public display of homosexualists' ideas in the city of
Vilnius."
The display of a 30-meter rainbow flag in a city square was to be the
centerpiece of Lithuania's first pride events in Vilnius. Other announced activities
included seminars, panel discussions, cultural programs, a dance party, and
distribution of LGBT-related information to the public.
Vilnius officials this week also voted to bar another bus promoting
tolerance from entering the city. Sponsored by the European Union and carrying the
slogan "For Diversity, Against Discrimination," itâ€™s an effort to educate
people about the EU's human rights laws, among them those guaranteeing the rights
of the continentâ€™s LGBT communities.
This is the fourth year the bus has toured EU capitals, with nineteen cities
scheduled in 2007, but Vilnius is the first to rebuff the campaign. The City
Councilâ€™s unanimous rejection cited information it claimed to have received
that anti-queer protestors were planning to disrupt events related to the bus'
arrival.
The European Commission issued a statement saying that: "The decision by the
city authorities shows how much still needs to be done to change behavior and
attitudes towards discriminated groups and to promote awareness of diversity."
India's foreign ministry is resisting Canada's request that the same gender
partners of two of its diplomats ­- one a lesbian and the other a gaay man --
be granted diplomatic spousal privileges.
Legal same-gender marriages, such as those in Canada, are not recognized in
India, and homosexual acts ­- or "carnal intercourse against the ordder of
nature" -- are punishable by up to ten years in prison under Indiaâ€™s Penal Code
Section 377. Legal challenges to the statute, a remnant of British colonial
rule, are stalled in the courts.
Canadian officials have reportedly suggested that under Vienna conventions on
diplomatic and consular relations, Canadian diplomats would not be subject to
Section 377. But India's foreign ministry maintains that those conventions
only provide immunity from criminal procedures, and that laws of the country
from which the diplomat is based are not relevant.
Kanako Otsuji, Japan's first openly lesbian or gay politician, this week
announced her decision to run in July's national elections in what she called a
challenge to government ignorance. The 32-year-old Otsuji is running for a
seat in the upper house of parliament, representing the countryâ€™s main
opposition Democratic Party, and is the first openly-queer candidate to be supported by
a major political party in Japan.
In 2003 Otsuji became the youngest candidate ever elected to the Osaka
prefectural assembly, and one of only seven women on the 110-seat body. She led a
policy change to allow same-gender couples in Japanâ€™s second largest city to
rent public housing, and halfway through her four-year term Otsuji went public
with her autobiography, "Coming Out: A Journey to Find Myself." She also
marched with about 2,500 other people in Tokyoâ€™s Pride Parade in 2005, and has
maintained the support of her local constituents.
In a message on her Web site, Otsuji said Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has
failed to address sexual diversity within Japan. "I think there is a tendency to
put forward one set of values and make it seem as though that is the only
beautiful or right way," she wrote. "But the reality is [that] Japanese society is
not engaging with the wide range of people living in diverse ways, in terms
of nationality, race, sex, age and disabilities."
In the latest developments surrounding a seemingly inevitable schism in the
global Anglican Communion, openly gay New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson
of the U.S. wingâ€™s Episcopal Church has not been invited to a once-a-decade
meeting of world Anglican leaders next year. A breakaway conservative U.S.
bishop was also snubbed.
Robinson, who lives with his male partner, called the decision "an affront to
the entire Episcopal Church." The other prelate, Bishop Martyn Minns, leads
a U.S. Episcopal parish network formed by outspokenly anti-queer Nigerian
Archbishop Peter Akinola to counter the liberal-leaning American denomination on
its home turf. Akinola said this week that not inviting Minns "will be viewed
as withholding [an] invitation to the entire House of Bishops of the Church of
Nigeria."
Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, the spiritual leader of the Anglican
Communion, said he took the rare step of withholding the two invitations so
that the meeting, called the Lambeth Conference, can focus on keeping Anglicans
together. He said that he didnâ€™t want to invite "bishops whose appointment,
actions or manner of life have caused exceptionally serious division or
scandal within the communion." More than 850 other bishops have been invited to the
Conference, scheduled to begin in July 2008 at the University of Kent in
England.
The U.S. Episcopal Church supports both the ordination of openly-lesbigay
bishops and the blessing of same-gender unions. Anglican leaders meeting
earlier this year in Tanzania said that the Episcopalians risk expulsion from the
international communion if they don't ban both by September 30th. Episcopal
bishops are scheduled to meet on September 20th in New Orleans to confront that
challenge.
At the last Lambeth Conference in 1998, bishops overwhelmingly adopted a
resolution declaring same-gender relationships "incompatible with Scripture," and
opposing the "legitimizing or blessing of same-sex unions [and] ordaining
those involved in same-gender unions."
Bishop Robinson said in a statement this week that: "It makes no sense to
exclude gay and lesbian people from the conversation. It is time that the
bishops of the Anglican Communion stop talking about gay and lesbian people and
start talking with us."
In U.S. state news this week, the Nebraska Senate voted 24-to-15 to reject
a bill that would have added sexual orientation to the stateâ€™s
anti-discrimination laws. Such measures have failed for the past 14 years in the state
legislature.
Nebraska law currently prohibits workplace discrimination based on race,
color, religion, sex, disability or national origin.
But two of Nebraska's neighbors have passed lesbigay civil rights protections
in recent weeks. Iowa Governor Chet Culver signed his state's anti-bias bill
into law at a ceremony this week, while Colorado Governor Bill Ritter is
expected to sign a similar bill in his state.
Governor Jim Douglas this week signed into law a measure banning
discrimination in Vermont based on gender identity or expression. And Ohio Governor Ted
Strickland issued an Executive Order last week protecting more than 60,000
state employees from discrimination based on their sexual orientation or gender
identity.
And finally, Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of U.S. Vice President Dick
Cheney, gave birth to an 8-pound, 6-ounce baby boy this week at Sibley
Hospital in the nationâ€™s capital.
Cheney and her partner of 16 years, Heather Poe, named their son Samuel David
Cheney. The White House released a picture of Vice President Cheney and his
wife Lynne with the boy, their sixth grandchild.
Mary Cheney and Heather Poe live in Virginia, however, which enacted a
constitutional amendment banning marriages of lesbian and gay couples, and does not
allow second parent adoptions involving same-gender couples. Under that
stateâ€™s laws, Poe therefore has no legal connection to the child.
According to Jennifer Chrisler, executive director of Family Pride, an LGBT
advocacy group based in Washington, D.C., those laws leave the couple and their
new son without the safety net enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.
Nevertheless, she said, Vice President Cheney's newborn grandson and the boy's two
mothers "put yet another face on our families for the American public."
= Moscow Pride News Brief =
In late-breaking news, Moscow police arrested at least 30 people on May 27th
­ the 14th anniversary of the decriminalization of homosexual sex inn Russia ­
as they attempted to gather signatures on a petition denouncing the ban of an
LGBT Pride march in the capital city.
About 100 people had gathered in a park across from the office of outspokenly
anti-queer Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov to collect signatures for the petition,
which has already been signed by about 40 members of the European Parliament.
Young militants from extreme right nationalist groups and several others
identified with the Russian Orthodox Church shouted "death to homosexuals" as they
pelted the peaceful petition-gatherers with eggs, and punched and kicked
several until police belatedly moved in.
Among those arrested were Pride organizer Nikolai Alexeyev and British
activist Peter Tatchell, who was punched by an anti-gay demonstrator before being
taken into custody. Also involved in the frightening melee were Vladimir
Luxuria, the first transsexual member of the Italian Parliament, German M.P. Volker
Beck, Dutch member of the European Parliament Sophie IntVeld, and Italian
M.E.P. Marco Cappato. A large contingent of international press on hand to cover
the expected confrontation witnessed the chaos.
Weâ€™ll have more on this story next time on This Way Out.

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